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Dropbox eating up a huge chunk of my CPU

shyam09

shyam09

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 31, 2010
2,229
2,498
I heard a weird sound in my room, and figured it was something small. then i checked a bit closely and realized my MBP's fan was on (my MBP was supposed to be sleeping). It was really hot, and the fans were around 4000 RPM.

I opened activity monitor and saw that DROPBOX was eating about 60 - 80+% of my CPU. The moment i quit it, everything returned to normal. I relaunched it and the same thing occurred. I re installed the program, but to no use. the problem still exists...

Currently dropbox isn't running, but i do sync files between my computers and iPad. Is it just me? or is this a bug of some sort that just appeared randomly? [it just started now [as in maybe 10 minutes ago at the latest, i would assume.]
 
S

shurcooL

macrumors 6502a
Jan 24, 2011
939
118
Was Dropbox doing any syncing? I've seen it use a lot of CPU when converting photos from your mobile device to be uploaded (a recent feature they've added), perhaps it was doing that?

You can always do a clean reinstall of Dropbox, which includes deleting the /Users/<User>/.dropbox folder.
 
shyam09

shyam09

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 31, 2010
2,229
2,498
uh, it wasn't syncing. It was just indexing about 1000 files. But it's been doing that for a few days (ie. a couple days ago, it was indexing, etc; yesterday it was indexing, ) ... and it never ate up any of my CPU
 
S

shurcooL

macrumors 6502a
Jan 24, 2011
939
118
If it's not syncing something new, it shouldn't really be indexing either.

I'd suggest you do a full uninstall and reinstall Dropbox. It's likely some rare bug that you ran into. Dropbox should only use a lot of CPU when you change a lot of files, or during the initial sync.
 
B

blatopilot

macrumors regular
Sep 24, 2011
149
0
Check to make sure dropbox is up to date.

Make sure no files are corrupt. Also make sure all files are properly named (.doc, .pdf. .jpg etc). I had one that was named wrong like word.do instead of word.doc and it caused problems.

Also go to your Dropbox account online (dropbox.com) and click the little trash can to show deleted items. You can try permanently removing the deleted items. If there are a lot it may help.

One last tip, take all of the contents of your dropbox folder, drag it to your desktop, and sync it so its empty. Then drag it back to have it reupload. It will reindex and may clean up any issues.
 
P

pcryan5

macrumors newbie
Jan 3, 2012
6
0
shyam09 said:
I heard a weird sound in my room, and figured it was something small. then i checked a bit closely and realized my MBP's fan was on (my MBP was supposed to be sleeping). It was really hot, and the fans were around 4000 RPM.
Click to expand...

Exactly same problem here with late 2010 MBA. I thought my fan had berserk - running over 6000RPM. I was not able to detect problem. Apple store spent 5 minutes on it and dropbox was the culprit.
 
M

multimiler

macrumors newbie
Nov 9, 2012
2
0
Same result in January 2013

Came into office, heard MBP fan screaming, and found Dropbox consuming 150% of cpu capacity. Dropbox was indexing. I quit dropbox and restarted, and things are back to normal.

I've seen this happen multiple times. Weird!
 
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bitblue

macrumors newbie
Jan 9, 2013
1
0
Dropbox impacting Finder

I had a similar issue with the CPU being so busy that my MBP became a hair dryer. However, it wasn't Dropbox indexing. The problem was simply that a Finder window with the Dropbox directory was open. As soon as I closed the Finder window, the CPU went back to normal. Weird.
 
O

opinio

macrumors 65816
Mar 23, 2013
1,171
7
shyam09 said:
I heard a weird sound in my room, and figured it was something small. then i checked a bit closely and realized my MBP's fan was on (my MBP was supposed to be sleeping). It was really hot, and the fans were around 4000 RPM.

I opened activity monitor and saw that DROPBOX was eating about 60 - 80+% of my CPU. The moment i quit it, everything returned to normal. I relaunched it and the same thing occurred. I re installed the program, but to no use. the problem still exists...

Currently dropbox isn't running, but i do sync files between my computers and iPad. Is it just me? or is this a bug of some sort that just appeared randomly? [it just started now [as in maybe 10 minutes ago at the latest, i would assume.]
Click to expand...

I only have that problem when dropbox does the intial sync after I rebuild from time machine?

You could try a reinstall of dropbox and 're-add' your files from another drive. I.e. build afresh?
 
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